Purported “Ex-Gay” Bullies Child Post Mortem

This screed from supposed “ex-gay” and anti-gay crusader D.L. Foster, about the suicide of Jamey Rodemeyer, has to be seen to be believed. It’s been amazing to watch, over the past year, as the suicides of gay teens have reached a certain level of prominence in the media, as members of the Religious Right like Linda Harvey have gleefully pissed on the graves of those we have lost. But I think Foster has outdone Harvey in the hate department, which is quite a feat. Is the hate of the Religious Right, which feeds the casual bigotry of those who bully gay kids into severe depression and, tragically, sometimes suicide, to blame here? No, Foster, hateful twit that he is, blames Dan Savage and Lady Gaga:

Homosexual activists Dan Savage and Lady Gaga should be brought up on charges of murder for issuing wholesale false promises and lies to young people confused about their sexuality.

“Lies” like “you can have a happy life” and “don’t let the bullies get you down.” This runs completely counter to D.L.’s message of “I’m filled with self-loathing to such a degree that I have become an abuser, and you can too!”

Just this past week, Savage’s so-called “it gets better campaign” proved just how ineffective it is when a fourteen year old boy in Buffalo, New York committed suicide after embracing its dead message. ABC News reported that Buffalo police are considering charges.

Yes, against the bullies. Because, unless you are mindblowingly stupid, you understand that the tragedy of Jamey’s death came despite the fact that there are now messages getting out there to tell gay kids that they’re going to be okay. The bullying was still just sadly too much.

Responding to Jamey’s “It Gets Better” video, D.L. says this:

If homosexual activists are looking for a culprit and someone to lay the blame on, they need look no further than what a dollar store mirror will show them. Plying confused children with false hope is just like giving a drunk kid car keys and telling him to drive home safely.

This is why anytime a rube from the Religious Right claims to want “dialogue” with LGBT people, they should be summarily laughed at and scorned. These people do not exist in the reality-based community. They actually believe their ridiculous, disproven dogma, which says that gay kids hate themselves “because of their sin,” which is, again, batshit stupid, as there are many, many, many gay teens who have never dealt with self-hatred or depression, and it’s because they have supportive families and communities. You take away the religion-based bigotry, and you have healthy kids, whether gay or straight. Right from the closet case’s mouth:

The tragic irony of the “it gets better” lie is that it ignores the only true hope for those who are personally embattled with sexuality and gender confusion issues. It (whatever “it” is) never defines what “hope” is, thus its nothing but a carrot stick trick to hurting children. Savage conveniently tosses out the bait only to dissappear then re-emerge with “outrage” when another sexually confused teen succumbs to their inner demons. The real outrage is that America has been suckered into accepting a lie that continues to kill its youth. Of course, it gets Savage and his IGB cohorts lots of media face time and awards and such. For them, the exposure certainly does get better.

Actually, Dan gets letters all the time from kids who are doing much better now because of the “It Gets Better” project. D.L. cannot prove that these kids are “personally embattled” or dealing with “inner demons.” No, that’s likely what D.L. deals with, and it’s because he’s a victim of the same machine that he’s now been empowered into abusing others with. And it is precisely that abuse that leads to dead kids.

In a way, I feel sorry for the Religious Right, because it must be quite a concept to grasp, to find out that everything they’ve ever believed is not only a joke, but also leaves a trail of blood and dead kids’ bodies. It must shake them up. But after I’m done feeling sorry for them for about eight seconds, we’re back to normal, where these people need to realize that if they don’t want to be viewed as monsters, they need to stop being f*cking monsters.

But let’s be clear here. The solution to such turmoil in youth isn’t the usual humanistic “just believe in yourself”, “just love yourself”, “you were born this way” screeds. At best, such is fatalistic window dressing. Telling someone that they cannot change what they hate about themselves is no promise, its a death sentence. Imagine if Christ came and told us that we could not be free from sin?

Yet again: take away the Religious Right dogma, and these kids have a hell of a lot better chance of surviving past 12th grade. Pile on the religious hate and the bodycount will continue to grow. It’s quite simple, because, again, for the slow wingnuts, these kids wouldn’t hate themselves if hateful fundamentalist whack-jobs like D.L. Foster didn’t teach them that they should. The fact that D.L. is a make-believe “ex-gay,” which means he actually knows what it’s like to be different because of your sexuality, and that he still chooses to twist the knife in regards to these kids, is simply a reflection of his own lack of character.

D.L. quotes something from that loon Jew for Jesus Michael Brown and then winds up here:

Savage, Gaga, Swilley, Obama and all the rest that have promised “it gets better” have no power to change anything because they are finite humans with the same limitations and frailties as the kids who believe their false promises.

Contrast the false —and powerless— promises of Savage, Gaga (who’s now whining to SOTUS about the issue) to the promises of new life given to all men who are in covenant with Jesus Christ.

Joshua 23:14 – God says not one of his promises will ever fail you
Jeremiah 29:11 – God says his plan for us is filled with hope
Titus 1:2 – You can rest in his promises, because he cannot lie
Numbers 23:19 – God is not a man that he should lie. If he said it, he will perform it.

Nothing will get better when the only hope for change is rejected. The only hope for this world is Jesus Christ. Not a church, not a program, not a campaign, not the lies of gay activists. Jesus Christ.

D.L.’s true message: his perverted vision of “god” created you wrong, but if you swear fealty to his perverted vision of “god,” you, too, can find a way to repress your true self and write hateful screeds about dead kids on the internet.

About the Author

Related Posts

21 Comments

It’s amazing, since reading this I have been sitting here, trying to find some way of expressing my sadness and outrage. I am at a total loss for words. What the hell is wrong with these people?

MichaelSeptember 30, 2011 at 3:31 pm -

And how many suicides have come from the “ex-gay” and anti-gay perversion of Christ’s commandment to love others as you love yourself? Clearly, when you lie to someone and repeatedly tell them that their creator did “not” create them and that He “hates” them for the way they are, you help cause the problems we see today. To deny that, in order to keep $$$ coming in, is unchristian, inhumane and evil. Professional “ex-gay” activists need to choose money or God. As the Bible says, they can’t have both.

Scott RoseSeptember 30, 2011 at 3:33 pm -

A weakness of the “It Gets Better” movement from the beginning was, and remains, that nothing in it says that the victims’ tormentors will be held accountable. Of course, the whole thing is very complicated, because sometimes a gay child or adolescent is facing anti-gay bullying from their parent or guardian (who may think that anti-gay bullies at school should “straighten the kid out.) Still, the “It Gets Better” message essentially is saying to bullying victims “Just put up with the bullying for now.” Children and adolescents do not have an adult’s perspective on time frames. It’s easy for an adult to tell a teenager “Oh just put up with that for two years more; it gets better.” But to the teen being tortured by gay-bashing bullies at his school at the beginning of Junior year, two years can seem an unbearable eternity. And, every student deserves a fear-free learning environment. OK continue with the “It gets better” business but also find ways to let the schools know that they won’t get away with allowing anti-gay bullying to go on.

Sorry, Foster. I’ll stick with the kind of hope that doesn’t come with conformity and suicide.

DanielSeptember 30, 2011 at 4:19 pm -

Scott, really, how is the It Gets Better project supposed to hold bullies accountable?

Wayne BesenSeptember 30, 2011 at 4:51 pm -

Dl foster is a sad, pathetic, profoundly disturbed individual. It’s hard not to feel sorry for him. What a depressing existence he leads, based on his angry and bitter rants. I hope he seeks help with a legitimate team of mental health professionals soon. (ones from Pat Robertson University don’t count as legit)

RainbowPhoenixSeptember 30, 2011 at 4:53 pm -

It’s probably not a good sign that I’m already so used to the religious reich’s crap that I can’t even be surprised enough to ge worked up over this.

Wayne, you are the only public figure speaking out agianst Foster, why is that? Why isn’t this man listed on SPLC’s or HRC’s watch list?

adam kautzSeptember 30, 2011 at 5:35 pm -

The thing is you guys is that the Religious Reich extremists are the very incarnation of the cult featured in Silent Hill the 2006 film. If you haven’t watched it I really suggest you do and note the similarities between the cult followers and the RR leaders and die hard’s like Foster, Sprigg, Labarbera, Perkins etc. Believe me the film is a real eye opener.

I have to agree with Scott Rose on his comment. I recall posting something on Pam’s House Blend about how I felt that the “It Gets Better” campaign really doesn’t go far enough in the accountability department. Sure, it’s a touchy/feely, warm fuzzy type of message to gay teens, however not every gay teen can be as strong as the next one. A tormented and bullied person can only take so much abuse before something has to give, and that usually ends up with the victim pulling a Columbine or self destructing, either/or.

I agree, there has to be some sort of accountability in cases where suicide is involved. Where do we lay the blame besides the obvious places. According to Foster, he lays it squarely on the doorstep of Dan Savage and Lady Gaga, President Obama, and those who he feels perpetuate this “lie” that they were ‘born this way”. To Foster, accepting God in your life and denying your true self to serve an ever fickle god, is the only way to TRUE salvation. As someone who went down that path, I can honestly say that “praying away the gay” and forcing myself to live in a normal “heterosexist” relationship did more harm to me than good. It created a sense of self loathing and hatred towards myself that I turned inward. I cannot begin to tell you how many hospitalizations I underwent because I just couldn’t get it right in a heterosexual relationship. it NEVER gets better when you hide who you were truly meant to be.

@Wayne, some years ago I paid for a billboard that stated “The Church Has AIDS”, it was an advertisement for a gospel talk radio show I produced and hosted that addressed HIV/AIDS and those social issues such as Religious Based Homophobia, that fuels HIV/AIDS in the black community. http://www.thebody.com/content/art40066.html

It was a very out there. Last year, I self published a book under the same name.

As far as the new billboard campaign; I want it to say “The Black Church Is Gay” and there would be a link to my ministry Word For The Soul Ministries and our program Project Love First. Details can be found here. http://love1st.wordpress.com/love-first/

I am a straight ally who is tired of seeing the hurt and pain around me.

These evil churches should get a financially crushing class action lawsuit for implicitly encouraging there bullying “Day of Dialogue” against gay kids. I swear if one conservative christian denomination went into bankruptcy over their anti-gay hate rhetoric you would all of a sudden see these social conservatives drop the gay issue. These people need to pay for all the evil that they cause. And these people are part of Satan.

GianniOctober 1, 2011 at 2:05 am -

Interesting that in all that ballyhoo he never addressed the bullying that drove this hurt, young man to kill himself. Nowhere in this blather is the bullying issue given any air time from this sanctimonious windbag. Is it possible to ask this man why not? After all, you are talking about the suicide of a teenager who was driven to do it by his, undoubtedly, Christian peers in school. Your religious smokescreen doesn’t quite address the subject nor hide it you clod.

Gary (NJ)October 1, 2011 at 11:07 am -

Foster should read The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, but considering how heartless and brainless he is, I doubt it would do any good.

Gary (NJ)October 1, 2011 at 11:13 am -

ps..if anyone isn’t familiar with this book, it’s a novel about a black girl in the rural south who is abused by her family and of course a very racist society. She hates herself and her life and dreams of being a white girl with blue eyes.

MerlynOctober 2, 2011 at 4:03 am -

I wish we could get some of these–no, ALL of these religious right f***s and throw their asses in prison for being accesories in all these kids’ suicide. A kid hears this b******t long enough, if he is fragile because of bullying, self-acceptance issues, etc. I can see him or her committing suicide and it is the fault of the asshat haters.

TedOctober 2, 2011 at 1:29 pm -

As awful as this is, it doesn’t match Linda Harvey. Her take on this is that there is indeed bullying. But the gays are to blame b/c we throw “the hand grenade of sexuality” into the schools. This causes boys to doubt their sexuality and become hostile and aggressive, leading to a “predictable explosion” of bullying. If gays would only disappear from public notice, boys would feel more secure and not bully.

So, Ted, when gays were still in the closet, no one in school ever got picked on for being overweight/wearing glasses/wearing the wrong clothes/being too skinny/carrying a calculator/having the wrong haircut/being the wrong religion/etc, etc, etc…

So, once again it is “TEH GAYZ” fault…

Wow, just wow. That’s a whole bucket-load of stupid.

Paul McOctober 4, 2011 at 6:28 pm -

Ahem…. coughs…. I did a bad thing. I posted on the GCMW blog post about Jamey. When I read that his suicide was just 2 weeks after starting at this new school, it all seemed so personal and real and I could readily imagine the fear in his head, the terminal hopelessness at the realisation that the bullying wasn’t going away at the new school.

I am sure the post will be deleted – it is overwrought to say the least and I used the C word. It slipped out.

Get to Know Us

Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that fights the "ex-gay" myth and antigay religious extremism.

TWO monitors anti-LGBT organizations, documents their lies and exposes wrongdoing. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for truth, integrity, and equality for sexual minorities.